Archive for the 'Tame Impala' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

Great news for Tame Impala fans who haven’t already booked up every night of Halloween week: the Australian band, which has provided several head-spinning excursions into revamped psychedelic rock this year (including two weekends of Coachella), has tacked on another.

In addition to slots opening for the Flaming Lips at the Greek Theatre on Oct. 29 and Santa Barbara Bowl on Nov. 1, Kevin Parker and his group will play their own headlining set on Oct. 30 at the newly reactivated Belasco Theater in Los Angeles.

It’s among the first handful of shows at the long-dormant but renovated venue, which recently hosted New Zealand sensation Lorde and has more gigs coming up: Swedish duo Junip on Oct. 20, $25; two nights from firebrand M.I.A., Nov. 11-12, $35; and reggaeton stars Plan B on Nov. 21, $30. (An Oct. 24 show from the Sounds is sold out, though they play the night before at the Observatory in Santa Ana, $25.)

Tame Impala’s support act, by the way, will be Austin’s White Denim, another touted new outfit that appears at the Greek with the Lips and whose new album, Corsicana Lemonade, also arrives Oct. 29. Tickets, $30, go on sale Friday, Oct. 18, at 10 a.m.

With last year’s sprawling 20-song set Privateering, veteran guitarist and singer-songwriter Mark Knopfler not only issued the first double-album of new material in his nearly four-decade career, he also surpassed himself: He has now put out more studio efforts as a solo act than he did as leader of epic-inclined rock band Dire Straits.

That wealth of recent material means he will have a lot to draw from when he returns to California for a string of dates, including Oct. 23 at the Long Beach Terrace Theater, $42-$82, and Oct. 26 at the Wiltern (a seated show), $55.50-$156.

Both of those go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. Also see him Oct. 25 at the Pearl Concert Theater in Las Vegas, $66-$146, on sale Monday; and Oct. 27 at the Fox Theater in Oakland, $65.50-$129.50, on sale Aug. 25.

The Brian Setzer Orchestra: They can’t very well continue their holiday tradition at Gibson Amphtheatre – that place, closing next month, will probably be demolished by the time December gets here. So the guitar whiz and his ensemble are moving their 10th annual Christmas Rocks show to the Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak) at Hollywood & Highland on Dec. 21, $55.75-$95.75, on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

Nearly three years ago, Australian psychedelic rock group Tame Impala played its first shows in Southern California. The initial date was scheduled at the 200-capacity Silverlake Lounge, but once taste-shaping site Pitchfork gave debut album Innerspeaker its coveted Best New Music designation, demand for a larger space grew exponentially. Soon a second show was added to that venue and Tame Impala was included on the bill of the nearby Echo's residency show a day earlier.

Their West Coast premiere wound up as part of a free show capped by Rainbow Arabia, playing to a few hundred fans primarily there to see the opening act. If you were lucky enough to get in, despite the tight performance and distinct aesthetic, it's doubtful you would have predicted Tame Impala would sell out the Fox Theater in Pomona just one album later.

Even at Thursday night's show, where the band capably managed the task at hand, giving fans extended renditions of highlights from their critically adored sophomore effort Lonerism, few went in thinking that next time around they'll be headlining the Hollywood Bowl. But with the band's growing popularity (they were one of the bigger draws at both Coachella weekends) and history of rising to challenges, maybe that's not so far-fetched.

If Tame Impala has proven anything with its ascent to fame, it's that the band is successful for something that comes very naturally. The energy and musicianship in 2013 has not changed dramatically since 2010. Frontman and primary songwriter Kevin Parker still prefers to grace the stage shoeless, and clearly enjoys hearing his creations as much as performing them.

Post-Coachella: It’s a well-established tradition that the morning after the festival ends, big shows from some of its top players get announced. Frankly, I’m surprised to not see certain ones so far – a full-blown West Coast Postal Service tour seems imminent.

UPDATE: And the next morning it was revealed: The Postal Service will play July 23-24 at the Greek Theatre, plus July 20 at Santa Barbara Bowl and July 21 at San Diego State's Open Air Theatre. All shows go on sale this weeekend. More details soon.

But there are at least two acts headed to the Hollywood Bowl, where Vampire Weekend appears Sept. 28 (that oughta be terrific) and the xx turns up Sept. 29 (that oughta be mesmerizing). Zach Condon’s group Beirut joins the former bill, while Oregonian electro outfit Chromatics should be a perfect complement to their English counterparts on the latter night.

Just because music fans were stuck in the middle of the desert for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this year doesn’t mean they were unable to celebrate Record Store Day on Saturday. As at still-standing (and sometimes thriving) stores nationwide, including Fingerprints in Long Beach and Costa Mesa's Factory Records, there were long lines and mad dashes to the Zia Records tent here in Indio, where collectors snatched up rare reissues, limited editions, colored vinyl and exclusive EPs.

Zia, peddling plastic throughout the three-day fest, released several of the hundreds of RSD-only titles, including a few Coachella exclusives: a clear-vinyl edition of rediscovered singer-songwriter Rodriquez’s 1970 debut Cold Fact, Portugal. The Man’s bone-colored limited-editon “Church Mouth” release, and The Secret EP from the Airborne Toxic Event, previously only available at the South by Southwest music conference in Texas last month. Saturday performer Puscifer, the experimental side project of Tool and A Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan, took to its Facebook page to let fans know the pop-up store had copies of the limited, hand-screened version of V Is for Vagina.

“Record Store Day is a lot of fun for us, but it’s difficult to predict what people will buy,” Brian Faber, general manager of Phoenix-based Zia Records, says. “We haven’t always been right.”

Anthony Keidis kicks off the final main stage set. Photo: Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Reigster

We were taking shelter from the whipping winds under one of the tents just next to the food stands, listening to however many members of Wu-Tang Clan were on stage at the Outdoor Theatre near the end of Coachella's first weekend. Sure sounded like they were all there: Method Man, the RZA, even Ghostface Killah. Not Ol' Dirty Bastard, of course.

Straining to keep dirt from flying into our mouths, we all repeated the same conclusion so many friends and colleagues had muttered as well: This hadn't been a flat-out bad festival, but it sorely lacked for wow moments. The Postal Service's brilliant set Saturday night – that's as close as it gets, more so than the random R. Kelly cameo at the end of Phoenix's performance. And neither of those measures up to last year's 2Pac hologram or Kanye West hovering over the crowd by crane the year before that.

Maybe, we thought, the wow moment was just about to happen. What else could it be but the full Wu taking on an N.W.A reunion in the ultimate East Coast vs. West Coast rap battle, featuring phantom ODB squaring off against hologram Eazy-E? To top it off, Daft Punk would stun everyone by surfacing high over the stage's structure to drop Arcade Fire's lantern balloons on everyone.

Let's start with some caveats. Principally: How strong the live stream will be from both Coachella weekends (available on the official site) depends on your equipment as much as the technical competence of festival organizers. Their crews already battle the elements to bring the action home. Don't battle back by having a lousy Internet connection and a shoddy laptop.

Also keep in mind that not everything will air, perhaps including some of these choices. Several top-tier names are apt to deny access.

And don't expect much – or anything – out of the Sahara dance tent. Apparently little was shown from there last year, so we aren't recommending many EDM stars.

Don’t care for this year’s Coachella double-whammy or simply didn’t get tickets in time?

Then perhaps you should consider traveling north for Memorial Day weekend.

Late last night the lineup was revealed for the next Sasquatch! music festival, May 24-27 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash. Seeing as there are only so many acts to go ’round at these multiday events, the number of repeats who appear a month earlier in Indio is high, from top-tier names like the Postal Service, Sigur Rós, Vampire Weekend, Tame Impala, the Lumineers and the XX to those that fall a few lines lower, like Alt-J, Japandroids, Father John Misty, DIIV, Divine Fits and Dropkick Murphys.

But then there are a few exclusives, like headliner Mumford & Sons in what should be their first stateside festival appearance of the year, and at a most picturesque locale. Also playing there but not here are Arctic Monkeys, Empire of the Sun, Andrew Bird, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Primus, Cake, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Devendra Banhart, Primus, Imagine Dragons, Dirty Projectors and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.

Usually as December dawns the very best works of the year have already risen to the surface.

Not so in 2012.

Sure, summertime yielded a few undeniable standouts, and they’re the same titles likely to cap the nationwide Pazz & Jop poll of critics when that tabulation is revealed in January. But even those standard-bearers lacked widespread momentum among people actually doing the listening. Even with Spotify putting everything at our fingertips, great music required more effort than ever to be discovered.

The monumental movers and shakers - runaway smashes like Taylor Swift’s Red and Mumford & Sons’ Babel - are confident collections that nonetheless lack the surprise and innovation worth singling out as exceptional. Granted, the mainstream typically isn’t the most abundant river for prize fishing.

But at a time when One Direction sells out shows a year in advance and "Gangnam Style" pulls in a billion YouTube views, while a trilogy from Green Day struggles to add up to the platinum status of even one generic country clone, well, it’s more polluted than usual.

November 17th, 2012, 11:50 pm by DAVID HALL, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Kevin Parker, leader of Australia's Tame Impala, at El Rey. Photo: David Hall, for the Register

A heaping handful of bands have taken stabs in the last decade or so at reviving late '60s/early '70s psychedelic rock, yet none has achieved it as convincingly or organically as Australia's Tame Impala.

The pet project of 26-year-old multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker, the band emerged in late 2008 with a pair of EPs, highly regarded at home, including a self-titled disc featuring the live staple “Half Full Glass of Wine.” Soon after they garnered international attention with the 2010 full-length debut Innerspeaker.

That album reflected Parker's mastery of sound manipulation via precise production – mostly transforming guitars and drums into walls of otherworldly sonics that resounded like synths more than anything else. This year's follow-up, Lonerism, continues that experiment, expounding upon Innerspeaker's more repetitive flow by favoring complex structures – distinct movements and segments breaking up broader soundscapes that echo early-era Pink Floyd and Yes as much as modern prog-rock purveyors like Dungen and Explosions in the Sky.

Though each disc has a distinctiveness – the former is decidedly more rock-based – their combined live manifestations made a uniform impact. During Friday night's gig at El Rey Theatre, the kickoff to a two-night L.A. stint that wrapped the next night at the Fonda Theatre, the outfit proved as much by weaving a 14-song tapestry tailor-made to knock the socks off capacity crowds.